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Abstract
The purpose of this article was to provide a historical examination of the interplay between Koula Pratsika’s dance school, its historical and social context and the formation of social categories of class, gender and nation in the 1930s as part of a greater project, that of the formation of upper class culture. This perspective reveals the interrelationships of upper class Athenians with modern dance against ballet’s and musical theatre’s dancing bodies. Moreover, it stresses the embodied aspects of discourses on ‘Greekness’ and relates contemporary dance with issues of gender roles and practices initiated by the women’s movement in the early twentieth century in the country. By stressing the crucial nexus of social identities and dance practices as a methodology for historical enquiry, dance becomes an adventurous area for interdisciplinary research, expanding dance’s impact on and importance in areas other than the arts, while revealing tensions and power struggles.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Adam Morianof, a Greek emigrant from Russia, came to Greece in 1929 and opened his ballet school in 1932. Manon Renieri, another emigrant from Georgia, founded her ballet school in 1934 (Tsatsou-Symeonidou Citation1999, 124–125). Pratsika’s cousin Polyxeni Mathey founded her own school of eurhythmics in 1938. She later introduced the Orff system in Greece.
2. Many of the teachers in Pratsika’s school, but also her collaborators such as the painter Giannis Tsarouchis, the poet Stratis Myrivilis and the writer Pandelis Prevelakis, were members of a major artistic and intellectual movement of the inter-war period called ‘the generation of the 1930s’. The common aim of this diverse movement, which became dominant after the war, was the renewal of arts, the combination of Western influences and Greek traditions and the creative assimilation of modernism.
3. Eva Palmer’s fascination with Greece was sparked by her encounter with Raymond Duncan and his wife Penelope in Paris in 1902. She followed them to Greece in 1906. In the Duncans’ home, Palmer met Penelope’s brother, the Greek poet Angelos Sikelianos, whom she married in 1907 in the United States.
4. Supporters of this belief included artists such as Konstandinos Psahos, the composer of Prometheus Bound, as well as the composer Menelaos Palandios and music professors Thrasyvoulos Georgiadis and Simonas Karras. The last three were collaborators of Pratsika.
5. Dalcroze’s influence on dance in Europe was made possible through his students, which included prominent figures such as the German choreographer and dancer Mary Wigman (1886–1973) and the Polish-Jewish dancer and dance teacher Mary Rambert (1888–1982), founder of Ballet Rambert. The Denishawn School, founded in California in 1915 by Ted Shawn and Ruth St Denis, was the first American modern dance school and it included Dalcroze’s system in its curriculum.
6. The first teacher of the modern dance technique in the Pratsika School was Loukia Sakellariou (1915–2003), a student of Gret Palucca (1902–1993). Sakellariou was completely dedicated to modern dance and was radically opposed to ballet, an orientation also shared by Pratsika.
7. Even though Pratsika did not write anything in her autobiography about Parren or her organisation, it seems unlikely that she would not have been in contact with her ideas, given the social context and the fact that her students taught in Parren’s organisation. In addition, Pratsika’s aunt Eleni Roussopoulou (1870–1950) and her cousin Agni Roussopoulou (1901–1977) were active feminists.
8. See for example Agapi Evangelidi (1919–1997) and Zouzou Nikoloudi (1917–2004).
9. In her autobiography, she made reference to the following performances of folk dances: In 1932, 1934, 1936 and 1937, the school performed at the Tennis Association (outdoor performances). In 1937, it participated in international competitions of folk dances in Vienna and Hamburg; in 1938, the school presented folk dances at Menton (France), and in 1937, 1938, 1939 and 1940, it participated in the festivities for Metaxa’s regime at the Panathinaiko Stadium (Pratsika Citation1991, 39–40).
10. The examination of Pratsika’s practices under the scope of nationalism is a theoretical direction of growing interest within Greek dance literature. See for example Loutzaki (Citation2008), Tzartzani (Citation2007).
11. For an examination of discourses and practices related to Pratsika’s philosophy and her influence on dance in Greece, see Tsintziloni (Citation2012) and Tzartzani (Citation2007).